


Snowdrift

by hectocotyle



Series: liquidmantis shenanigans [5]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Asexual Character, Gore, Nonbinary Character, Other, Psychic Bond
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-08-14 21:29:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8029528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hectocotyle/pseuds/hectocotyle
Summary: Liquid's bond with Mantis causes him to develop psychic powers, and it's up to Mantis to help him keep it together.





	1. headache

"Mmf! MMMM!"

Jolted awake by a frantic barrage of smacks to the shoulder, Liquid realizes he's smothering Mantis in his chest hair. He relaxes his death grip, and Mantis gasps for air in overdramatic fashion.

<The _one_ night I go maskless, > he grumbles in thought-speech. <Incidentally, you may want to check your tit hair for boogers.>

<Bad dream,> Liquid says apologetically. <I guess, anyway. Don't remember much of it.> He frowns in the dark. <I was searching for something, I think.>

<A nice warm Mantis to curl up with, from the looks of it. You're shivering like crazy.> He rubs his boss's strong shoulder. <Hmph. This won't do. I need you to serve as my personal furnace.>

Liquid responds by pulling him into another stifling bear hug (<Oh God why>) and laughing at his undignified spluttering when he lets go.

<It's like being trapped in a national forest. One of these days I'm going to hold you down and shave you myself, don't think I won't. Or force you to wear a shirt, like a civilized person.>

<Whoa there. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Mantis.> Blearily he glances at the digital clock on the nightstand. He grunts, annoyed. <Only half an hour before my alarm goes off. May as well stay up.>

<I'll keep you company.>

Liquid stretches, scratches the back of his head. He must have fidgeted quite a bit in the night, because he has a more-disastrous-than-usual case of bed hair. <My God. Feel this, Mantis. If anything I'm overdue for some beauty rest.>

< _You_ need beauty rest? Remind me, again: which of us looks like a male model, and which looks like a desiccated cadaver that was put through a meat grinder and then patched back together by someone who wasn't all that invested in the job? >

<You're the prettiest cadaver I ever laid eyes on.>

<Do you make a habit of checking out good-looking dead people?>

<Just one.>

Mantis makes a skeptical sound, but Liquid can tell he's pleased.

He puts on his mask, and they head down to the communal restroom to do their business and brush their teeth. On the way out they're greeted respectfully (if tiredly) by a couple of night guards finishing up their shifts, though Liquid can't help noticing that they carefully avoid looking straight at Mantis.

They spend the remainder of their free time lazing about in bed. Mantis reads from a book with a fancy, old-fashioned cover called _The Romance of Insect Life_.

<That thing looks horribly outdated,> Liquid observes.

<Part of the charm,> says Mantis, glancing up from Liquid's lap. <The author wasn't even an entomologist, and boy does it show.> He sniffs in disdain. <Why dump spiders and centipedes and whatever random arthropods you feel like in a book called _The Romance of INSECT Life_? Not to say I dislike other arthropods, they're fascinating in their own right, but insects are the most diverse animals in the _world_ ; hell, you could fill volume after volume with the known lepidopteran species alone. And, oh, don't even get me started on beetles—>

Liquid listens patiently, though biology has never been his strong suit and he therefore doesn't understand half of what Mantis is talking about. Given the chance, he could probably go on like this for hours, and Liquid would be content to let him. It's just sweet watching him get all enthusiastic over his favorite subject next to murder, his tendency to use a lot of expressive hand gestures for emphasis becoming even more pronounced.

After a while he feels a headache coming on, thanks to his disturbed rest. <Ugh. I'd better get some caffeine in my system.>

<But you hate coffee,> says Mantis. True enough; his stomach can't handle the smell of it this early in the morning.

<I'll be worthless all day otherwise.>

<Good. You can stay with me. We'll be worthless together.>

<Are you encouraging me to play hooky?>

<Absolutely.>

<You are a terrible influence, Psycho Mantis.>

<Absolutely.>

Liquid flicks the back of his head, not without affection. <I'd better not get another complaint from Intel that you've been ignoring their summons because the job description bored you.>

<Pfft. Now, what do you think are the chances of that?>

\----------

By the time Liquid reaches the rec room, it feels less like a headache and more like the universe is trying to implode itself using his fragile human skull as a focal point.

He pours himself a cup of sludgy coffee that smells about as appealing as Satan's asscrack sweat and slumps into a chair at a rickety round table that houses a group of soldiers who acknowledge him before resuming their chatter. Propped up on his elbows, he massages his temples, wishing they'd shut up but too miserable to move elsewhere.

Oh, perfect, now one of them is waving his hand in Liquid's face. Because what a person with a headache needs is to be _more_ pissed off.

He squints at the soldier—when did his vision get so blurry?—and recognizes Shy Rat, who lives across the hall from himself and Mantis. "What? What do you want?" he moans.

"I said you don't look so good, sir. Maybe you should take the day off."

"Nonsense." Liquid lifts his cup to his mouth and immediately has to set it back down, dry-heaving once or twice from the smell.

"He's right, man," puts in Lonely Waterbug, Rat's lanky roommate. "No offense, but you look like a zombie." The others mutter their agreement.

"Tell you what: you worry about you and I'll worry about me. Fair enough?"

Rat and Waterbug share a look.

_typical. too proud to accept help._

Liquid curls his lip at Waterbug. "Excuse me? Would you care to repeat that?"

"Repeat what, sir?" says Waterbug, frowning.

Oh, fuck this! Liquid springs upright, knocking over his chair with a bang, slamming his hands down on the table. " _You know damn well what!_ "

His mind can't make sense of what happens next.

All he knows is that there's a smoldering hole in the ground where the table used to be, and that the soldiers—Rat, Waterbug, all of them—lie crumpled around it, their heads burst open.

Liquid staggers backward, eyes darting this way and that, instinctively searching for an enemy, but there's no one here.

Just him.

"What happened? We heard an explo—" Greedy Sandpiper's boots squeak briefly as he skids to a halt in the doorway, taking in the bodies, the blood and bits of gray-pink brain matter plip-plipping down from the ceiling. "Oh _shit_." Hissing Nautilus and Diligent Crow appear on either side of him and utter similar exclamations.

How can he even begin to explain this? "I was... they all just..."

Sandpiper and Nautilus and Crow stare at him a few moments, speechless with shock, then exchange panicky glances with one another.

_was it him?_ says Crow, but his mouth doesn't move. _jesus, that look in his eyes..._

_my god, did_ he _do this?_ Sandpiper is saying at the same time. _look at him. he's standing there unscathed._

Their thoughts—because what else could they be?—start flooding Liquid's mind in a sudden, overpowering torrent.

_...hangs around that mantis nutjob so much, maybe he finally..._

_...so angry all the time, it wouldn't be that big of a surprise..._

_...controlling him from a distance..._

_...never did seem all that stable..._

_...sick of waiting, gonna kill us all..._

"Wait!" Liquid yells, barely able to hear himself past the clamor crowding its way into his throbbing skull. He holds up his hands to show he's unarmed. Pointless, of course. It's plain now what's happening to him—what he's done.

In a flash, three firearms are pointed his way.

In a flash, three more people join his body count.

He gapes down at the headless soldiers, eyes huge.

He didn't mean to kill them. His alarm had spiked when they aimed their weapons at him, and it had just happened.

Out. He's got to get out. Christ, he'll slaughter the whole base.

Clutching at his head, he stumbles over the bodies, gagging at the heavy reek of blood. Their deaths did not leave him in silence; it sounds like every mind within a mile radius has joined in the ceaseless, senseless, maddening din inside his brain.

Liquid steps out of the room, and there he is, floating at the end of the hall.

_Oh, God, no._

"Get out of here!" he shouts, terrified of what might happen if he uses thought-speech. "Stay away from me!"

Mantis hovers closer. <I can help you.>

He immediately starts to back away. "That was an _order_! Are you listening to me, Mantis?" His back thumps against the wall. Mantis keeps coming. With nowhere left to retreat, he turns his head to one side, squeezing his eyes shut. "Goddammit, get _out_!"

<Eli.>

He looks up, startled. Mantis does not use that name frivolously.

<You won't hurt me, Eli. I'm not afraid of you.>

Liquid has never been more afraid of himself. He cringes away as Mantis reaches out to him.

A bright, narrow slash appears on Mantis's thin shoulder, but nothing worse than that. Mantis doesn't flinch. A few meters behind him, there's a horrible shriek of metal as the wall splits wide open, admitting gusts of icy Alaskan air.

<See? You redirected it. You're learning.>

He hears a series of clicks, and Mantis's mask detaches itself from his face. He straps it on Liquid.

The relief from the voices is instantaneous and profound, and he nearly whimpers with gratitude. They haven't gone away entirely, but are muted to more of a background noise, much easier to block out.

Mantis takes his boss's face in his hands. Strokes his hair gently. He allows this with some reluctance. His headache is still terrible, but more manageable now, as if the psychic outburst vented the worst of the pressure.

<I know how scary it is at first, but you'll be okay, I promise. I put a psychic block on the hall so no one else will come until you've calmed down. You'll be okay, Eli. I'll help you.>

"Thank you," he croaks, the mask making his voice breathy. Then, "Your arm."

<Just a scratch. Don't worry about me.>

Liquid snorts, feeling some of his old ornery self seep back. "I'll worry about you as I see fit. You're going to the infirmary to have that looked at, and you're going to _like_ it."

Mantis gives a long-suffering sigh, but there's a gleam in his pale eyes. <You're the boss.>

He shudders as something else occurs to him. "Aren't the voices bad without your mask?" The knowledge that Mantis has lived with this for years—decades—makes his limbs weaken with sympathy. No wonder he can't stand to be around people.

<Yes, but I have spares. Anyway, you need it more than I do right now.> He touches his forehead to Liquid's. <I do find that being right up near you helps drown them out almost as effectively. Because of our bond.>

Their bond. "Is that what caused this, d'you think?"

Mantis's brow creases in thought. <I've heard reports of such things happening to people who work with psychics. Never to this degree, though. At most the person is able to detect others' emotions every once in a while, much as you could sometimes detect mine. You have to understand, we psychics tend to be a solitary lot.> He smiles wryly. <Most people don't trust us enough to get closer to us than strictly necessary.>

Liquid puffs out a slow breath. "Will I be able to keep from... from accidentally killing anyone else?"

<It's harder in the beginning, when you're not used to controlling it. The best thing is to avoid situations likely to provoke strong outbursts of negative emotion from you.>

He rolls his eyes. "Easy. Negative emotion, what's that?"

<I know, I know. You'll just have to make the best of it. And remember, you've got me. I consider myself something of an expert on the harsh realities of living with devastating psychokinetic prowess.> He blinks at the wound on his shoulder as if noticing it for the first time. <Ah. That is bleeding pretty vigorously.>

Liquid winces. "Sorry, sorry."

Mantis shrugs. <Accidents happen.>

Liquid shoos him off to the infirmary; he leaves the psychic block in place for Liquid's peace of mind.

Peace of mind. That's a laugh.

He sits with his back against the wall, shivering, and not just from the bitter wind streaming in from outside. Thinking about Mantis's injury. Sick with worry that he just happened to get lucky this time.

 


	2. maniacs

_don't look at me don't look at me oh god don't look at me_

"Well, I had no particular plans to look at you, but reverse psychology and all that," Liquid says dryly. He coughs once, still unused to the way the mask ( _his_ mask) changes his voice.

The recruit, a kid barely out of his teens, fumbles his way through an apology. Liquid waves him off with a sigh.

<I get that a lot,> Mantis says. <It can be pretty hilarious if I'm in the right mood, but the novelty kind of wears off when people work themselves into a frenzy every time I so much as come out to use the facilities. Sometimes a remorseless killer just needs to pee, you know?>

Two days have passed since the... incident. Liquid spent most of that period holed up in his quarters, staring at the wall, too numb to object when Mantis offered to run his errands for him. He's not by any means a sentimental man—there's no room for that in this line of work—but neither is it a good feeling knowing he's directly responsible for the violent, meaningless deaths of several of his subordinates. Each night Mantis has slid into bed with him as usual, untroubled by thoughts of being murdered in his sleep; Liquid only wishes he could share his friend's lack of concern. Needless to say, he himself has been sleeping like shit.

Today, following copious reassurances to Ocelot, Wolf and the rest that he knows what he's doing, Mantis is taking him on a "casual" stroll around base. This will, in his words, "prove to your brain that you won't inadvertently butcher everyone you come across". Seems sensible enough.

Except that being surrounded by people who fully expect him to snap at any second (the whole story spread through FOXHOUND like crabs through a sleazy brothel) makes him anxious, and he's been conditioned all his life to express anxiety in the form of anger, and anger is what got him into that ordeal in the first place.

Oh, this new life is going to be _such_ fun, he can already tell.

A phantom itch on his upper arm tips him off that Mantis is poking at his stitches again. <For the last time, quit fiddling with those,> he says, pretending not to notice a pair of skinny little lab techs who scurry past like mice sneaking by an exceptionally notorious cat.

Poke. Poke. <I can't help it. It's so satisfying.>

<Yes, well, you know what wouldn't be satisfying? Getting a nasty infection.>

<Speak for yourself.> Poke. Poke.

Liquid's low growl of disapproval makes a pack of soldiers behind them decide to take the scenic route to their destination instead. He watches them over his shoulder in dismay.

<You'd think they'd at least try to have some faith in their own CO! I haven't harmed anyone else, have I?>

< _I_ don't harm our own people—granted, more out of respect for your wishes than any sort of sense of fraternity, but still. Does that stop them from seeing me as a ticking time bomb? A natural disaster waiting to happen? >

Liquid stops walking.

<This is hardly a recent development, either,> Mantis goes on. <When I was younger and more forgiving, I used to try making friends, believe it or not. I hoped to find more people like you.> He shakes his head, self-mocking. <Oh, I got on well enough with others, but nonetheless I always had the sense I was being kept at arm's length. Like people only stuck around because they feared the consequences of openly rejecting me.> He stares straight ahead in silence for a few seconds. <I would have preferred open rejection, to be honest.>

The only thing Liquid can think of to say is <You never told me about any of that.>

<You wouldn't have understood,> Mantis says matter-of-factly. <It's impossible to adequately express this stuff to someone who will never have to experience it. But, of course, things are different now. And I'll be damned if I let you feel like you have to go through this alone.>

Beginning to feel self-conscious (which Liquid picks up on as clearly as if he himself were feeling it), he changes the subject. <So, how have you been enjoying unlimited exposure to everyone's unfiltered, disgusting thoughts?>

He grits his teeth as he resumes walking. <Kill. Me.>

<Yeah, sounds about right. These masks can only do so much, sadly.>

<You know Lemur, that night sentry stationed outside the tank hangar? Yesterday I was treated to the loveliest first-person view of him scratching his balls when he thought no one was looking.> Liquid grins wickedly. <Want to see?>

<NO.>

<Oops. Too late.>

< _WHY._ >

Liquid cracks up.

<That is _it_! > says Mantis. He takes psychic hold of Liquid's left arm and makes him smack the side of his own head repeatedly.

<C'mon, Mantis, I was just—oh my GOD that's annoying—>

<Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!>

<At least teach me how to defend myself first, you ass!>

Mantis pauses mid-smack. <Hm? You're ready to start learning?>

<The sooner I learn to control this stuff, the better. _You_ may not worry I'll hurt you, but I can't stop obsessing over it. As you well know. >

<Please. An inexperienced psychic like you couldn't hurt me even if you tried.> Liquid looks pointedly at his shoulder injury, and he adds, <Provided I have a shield up, that is.>

<You didn't... put up a shield?> Liquid feels a retroactive panic attack coming on as he thinks of the gouge he left in the wall, so huge and jagged they have yet to finish repairing it.

Mantis shrugs. <I didn't need to.>

<Yeah, you know that _now_! Dammit, Mantis, you can't take pointless risks like that! >

<It wasn't pointless.>

<And how is that, pray tell?!>

Shit. He's getting too fired up. And if Mantis refuses to defend himself again—

<You remember when we were kids?> Mantis says, calm as ever.

<Yes,> he says cautiously. <What of it?>

<You were never afraid of me, even though you'd seen what I was capable of.>

<It was instinct, more or less. Both of us children being pursued by adults who wanted to use us or hurt us. I guessed you must've been pretty scared yourself.>

Mantis nods. <That, more than anything else, helped me rein in my powers around you. Your simple belief that I wasn't a danger to you.>

He must admit, it's a lot harder to stay worked up when Mantis has such total faith in him. His heart rate is slowing already. <All right,> he says at last. <I trust your judgment.>

A few steps later, he glances around. <Huh. Been a while since we saw anyone, hasn't it?>

<Seems like word got out that a couple of masked maniacs are stalking the area.>

Liquid grins. <Then maybe it's time the masked maniacs retired to their room. You've got some teaching to do.>

 


End file.
